


The Sea Is Just A Wetter Version Of The Sky

by alexiel_neesan



Series: The Sea Is A Wetter Version Of The Sky [1]
Category: DCU
Genre: Drugs, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Wordcount: Over 10.000, self-neglect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-13
Updated: 2011-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-21 23:07:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexiel_neesan/pseuds/alexiel_neesan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Inconceivable things do happen - and at the end of the day, bats are still only human.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sea Is Just A Wetter Version Of The Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Title from: _There's a shadow/You can't see my eyes/And the sea is just a wetter version of the skies_ \- Regina Spektor, Folding Chair. Beta by awesome kirax2, thank you so much you rock! Would have never seen the light of day without my amazing Partner in Crime, you know who you are.
> 
> Have a box of tissues ready. You'll need them.

Tim was exhausting himself. There were many reasons as to why and how. They all did make sense, in his head, on his lips. Perfect reasons, perfect logic.

Perfect exhaustion.

He wasn't living at the Manor. He was living out of the storage boxes he had reconverted into his home-base. No Alfred quietly threatening him to eat, not anymore. It showed.

 _I'll have that protein bar after I finish typing that report._

He was working on several cases at once.

 _I'll sleep after that last patrol and sweep for information._

It was all the things Batman didn’t hear about because Red Robin caught them first. And dealt with them. Bruce just got back. He didn't need Gotham's crap right now. And then it was just a habit to take on everything by himself, a habit Tim had started by the time he had left Gotham in search of Bruce.

He had got his friends' help to finish Ra's, but he couldn't involve them every time.

 _Kon and Bart have Teen Titan stuff right now... I can handle this._

Red Robin could handle these things, could handle everything. This wasn't like with Ra's, these were only Gotham's own problems, the same craziness that pervaded everything. Batgirl and Oracle were busy on their side. Oracle had said something the first time she had caught Tim's tracks in her files; and then, after the next dozen times, she had given him partial access because it was easier to keep track of him that way. It made things easier for him, too, he had information faster and more reliably. After a while, or maybe it was really just a short time, Babs totally stopped tracking him in her files. Tim was only interested by Gotham.

Dick and Damian had their own problems –Batman and Robin stuff. Tim knew about that better than anyone. Dick was more D's mentor, more D's father than Bruce had ever been and Damian needed constant watching, like boiling milk.

Boiling milk didn’t kill people, though.

Anyway, Tim was good at multitasking and dividing his time. Knowing when to take breaks, however... Tim deliberately got away from lunch dates and movies and just seeing Dick. He was good at redirections, too. And Dick figured Tim needed the space, because it wasn't so long ago he had hurt Tim by taking Robin away and.

Things just happened.

Tim still should have seen the signs. He was exhausting himself.

+++

"Really? Bruce lets you get away with this amateur shit? Did you decide even sleeping was too good for you, Pretender? Not sleeping and patrolling will only get you a crowbar to the skull. You remember that."

That was Jason, in Tim’s HQ. Tim didn’t react to the intrusion. Jason was actually pretty helpful, when given the right information. That was how Tim thought about it. It should have maybe freaked him out, now - it would have, earlier, to think of using Jason as another tool in his arsenal so casually. But Tim had so many things to take care of, to worry about, to do. If Jason could help in some ways, even if his methods weren’t all methods Tim would use or condone, then Tim would use him.

Unknown to Tim, Jason was keeping an eye on him. The slips… disturbed him, a bit, because he knew what Tim was capable of, when the kid stopped trying too hard to follow B. So Jason left pointed hints for Dick, for the Bat currently in action to look this way, but it just. Didn't seem to be enough.

Jason even phoned Alfred. Once. Except... He phoned to the Manor, and it was Dick who answered:

"He's my brother, Jason. I think I know Tim just a little bit better than you. Seeing as I've not once tried to kill him."

"Nah. You just let him think he wasn't good enough anymore."

"You don't know what you're talking about. Tim understands. Tim got it."

"I know that I'm talking about someone going down, asshole, and that person is your precious brother. He's not getting it. He's killing himself - and the universe knows why you might be the only person he'll listen to."

"Why do you care, Jason?”

"Want another dead Robin on your hands? Fine. It's your problem."

Jason tried to not hear finality in the click of the connection switched off on his end.

He wondered, vaguely, why he cared. There was no big revelation there.

Following and spotting the pretender at school was easy... when Tim actually went. Which he was not doing, not in the last week. It was beginning to hurt his cover as a plain regular rich kid. Jason snooped around. Tim was not living at the ‘Cave and Manor, he was not at the cave under Wayne Tower either, nor at the satellite caves Jason knew about or in the half dozen buildings owned by Wayne Enterprises and used as covers.

Jason knew Tim still worked for Wayne Enterprises, via Tam Fox. So he swung by her office, one day that he knew neither Bruce, Dick, Lucius, Damian or Alfred were supposed to be there.

"Hey, Diversity Barbie! You seen a midget-y, skinny bird around lately?" He made her jump and drop her PDA on the floor. She looked up at him with wide eyes, seemed to recognize him - it was possible that Tim told her who she might encounter. It was also possible he just stood out like a sore thumb in the office tower, even in his best suit and looking like any other office worker from Downtown Gotham.

"He called. He just called. I don't know where he is." She paused. "Aren't you the brother that keeps trying to kill him?"

"... Why does everyone always bring that up?" muttered Jay under his breath. It was a nice office. Nice security, too.

Tam paused, "... he cancelled lunch the other day. It wasn’t the first time, but he’s been tired lately–" Her eyes widened almost impossibly as Jason frowned at that bit of news. She looked scared, asked, "He's... he's okay, right?"

He was such a sucker for pretty eyes. "... I'll make sure he is. Keep him talking next time you got him on the phone, okay? And if there's anything...," he grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from her desk and scribbled a number and a mail. New ones. Safe ones. If she handed them to Tim or Babs or any of the others, he’d know it right away and never use them again.

She took the card, "... so is this a family trait? The whole, speaking with as few words and little actual detail as possible?"

"That depends of how many people from the family you've met." He got ready to leave - by the door. The window wouldn’t open without a good explosion, and it was almost too high to use his grapple gun. He didn't think to say that it was not his family.

Jason went back to the first storage box - Tim actually hadn't changed of box. It was the same as the last time, a few days ago. One more sign that something was wrong.

Tim was busy - he always was. But it was not usual for Jason to come around so often. That and other things, too. It made Tim react - but nothing that would distract him from the surveillance video he was currently reviewing, as well as the plan of a building he needed to get into, later, and this police file with a missing girl.

“Tam told me you came to see her. Why?” It had been a passing mention in the middle of asking her to clear his schedule and change meetings in a short phone call.

"Hey. You keep stealing my costumes, I get to steal your... very attractive, rich, lovely girlfriend. That's fair, right?"

Tim just turned, and looked at Jason blankly. "... She's not my girlfriend." And he went back to his monitors. "What can I do for you, Red Hood? Or is it just Red? Or Jason? I can't really keep up with you these days."

"Cut the bullshit, Drake. Or is it still Wayne?" It felt... more than petty. Lines already said. Tim could hear Jason gritting his teeth - and then Jason slammed his hands on either side of him, trapping him between monitor, chair and Jason. "What the fuck are you doing, Tim?"

Tim... didn't even blink. He sighed, "My job, Jason."

"What?" Jason swiveled the chair around, grabbed Tim up - and Tim was be unable to tell what Jason was looking for, there, right in front of him. "Where on the job application is it written you got to starve and exhaust yourself? Is that what Gotham needs? Lemme tell you, you should get another girlfriend, because that's fucking abuse."

How could he explain this without... getting stabbed. Tim pointed to two wrappers, to the side, "I ate." He sighed and rolled his eyes up, "This won't be like this forever, Jason. But right now... Bruce needs time. And... Adjustments... adjustments need to be made." He rolled his grip out of Jason's. Getting stabbed would seriously interfere with the heist he needed to stop at 5th and 54th at 12:30. Tim could feel Jason watching him as he slipped out of his grasp, could almost see his expression as he turned back to the monitors.

Jason kept talking. "Lack of sleep makes you do and see funny things. And not fucking haha-funny, either." Tim heard the crinkling of the wrappers being picked up, and the silence at his back. He could almost feel what Jason was thinking.

"What? It's Alfred approved."

"... I don't think he'd approve of it being eaten on its own. Those are the snacks bars he gives for the belts!”

"Yeah. That's why I ate two. Why aren't you getting this?" Tim had stuff to do. If he got through this night quick without criminals or metas getting cute, he could get back by two a.m. and do that paper he'd been meaning to finish... Get an hour of sleep and then go catch the bus for school with a well-forged note from Bruce. Something about. Food poisoning from... somewhere.

"Tam's worried about you."

Tim saw Jason crossing his arms and staying that way out of the corner of his eye. It didn’t sound or look like he was going to go anywhere else tonight. And- Tam. Tim'd canceled on Tam. He'd, he'd make that up to her soon...ish. Right now he had this to take care of. And Jason was still here. Being difficult. He gulped down the rest of his diet Zesti and observed Jason’s body language: he was pissed. Well, Tim could probably work with that. "Thanks for the sage advice Jason. If there is nothing else?" and he levered himself out of the chair, listening to his spine pop. Um. Ow.

"You're not getting out without back up." Jason was obviously not going to change his mind about this. Tim wondered why the older man cared. He would probably not win this one.

"Suit up. No guns. No killing". He checked the stock in his belt, ignored the faint tremors in his hands. Made a fist so that he could ignore and deny more completely.

"I can do 'no killing' with a gun." But Jason looked… maybe ready to leave the most obvious one here, if that was what it would take, the holster already unclipped from his belt and dangling from a gloved finger. "After you, your Batness," Jason called.

Tim knew Jason didn’t see his hands shaking. Jason would have mentioned it. "Stop it Jason. You're making me blush."

Tim could do this. He could do this. Just. One night and he could squeeze in a nap tomorrow after class. Before his meeting with Bruce. He would just cancel that thing with Dick. Dick would understand... Tim would lie and say Tam wanted to hang out. Dick liked it when he did normal seventeen years old things like hang out with girls.

The first shot of the grappling hook made him want to lose those two power bars from his stomach.

Jason followed him. He didn't ask any more questions aside from what’s the target, where are we going. And he watched Tim.

"Can you check your temper, Hood?"

Jason rose an eyebrow at that - he only had a mask on, Tim could see the facial expression, could read what Jason was allowing himself to show loud and clear. "I'm not being good enough, Double R?"

"Oh no. Right now you're behaving like a perfect child." He wondered if he was a big enough asshole, if Jason would leave him alone. "Daddy will be so happy with the report." He probably had a better chance of getting beaten, though. "So you just keep up the good work, ‘cause, we have a call... pimp getting a little rough with underage girls. Can you keep it together, or do I have hit you on the nose with a rolled up paper?"

Boy... he didn't remember being this mean. And he really didn't remember it being this hard to fly and talk at the same time...

Jason looked like he didn't know whether to laugh or hit Tim hard enough to make his brain rattle. They had shared pretty awful talks, but it never got to the level of this one. Tim wondered if Jason was wondering if he shouldn't check for possession, pod-people style, all of that being so unlike prim and proper Robin. And at the same time... Jason seemed pleased by the level of bitching Tim could attain. Jason didn't raise to the challenge though - the mention of the pimp made sure of that.

"Oooh, hit me, Double R, please..." Jason took his most obnoxious and seductive voice for that. He sure could give as good as he was given. "Lead the way."

Tim was tired. He was bitchy when he was tired. And he wasn't sure why he was being this way right now, why he was being a little shit, worse than even a pissy Damian, other than the fact that... he was just so tired. His eyes felt like they had lead weights attached to them. He was pretty sure he smelled like the stale sweat that had been sticking to his body for the better part of an hour.

+++

Jason's help had been immeasurably useful. Tim thought he might actually make it through the night without bleeding. And maybe... maybe he would not write that paper tonight, if he got home early enough. Maybe he would take the late penalty and just sleep for four hours straight.

He was... slowing down. It would be easier if Jason set the pace. Tim was lagging. "Corner of Belmont and Harbor blvd. Your lead." And it was a relief to fall back. To be second again. To have someone –something– to follow.

The night had went. Surprisingly well, all things considered. It was Gotham we were talking about but. But it had gone pretty well.

"You're sure you want to take it?" Jason behaved himself and- he had to admit Tim was good. He could be better, but he was good. Right now, Tim couldn't even hide how tired he was. That was the only reason Jason got to lead. He was tempted to tell him to stay up and watch. He was not sure how it'd be taken. He was not sure Tim could take another shot of the grapple gun right now.

Tim knew how he would approach the situation, when they got to the corner. He knew exactly what he would do. But he was more interested in what Jason was going to do about it. It was just one guy, after all. There were a bunch of terrified girls spread on several blocks that, Tim knew from experience, would have bruises hidden by thick, caked-on makeup. He was… he was no idiot. He knew Jay was packing heat. A zebra couldn't change its stripes and all that, and the one gun left in his storage box at the beginning of the night had been only some strange peace offering. But... it was one guy, and if Jason looked like he was about to lose it when he actually saw the fifteen year old that Tim knew was hidden in the bathroom in the basement thanks to Babs' intel, well. He probably couldn't take Jason, but... he might be able to pass out on him. And that could possibly... help. "Your move, there, Number 2."

"Should I call you Number 3, then?" It was quick and fast, a shadow of a smirk - and then Jason was studying the corner, and the place. "What kinda intel we have on this guy?"

The guy looked like he was alone, but looks were often misleading. There could be half a dozen guys hiding in the shadows and behind the brick walls, arm caches, this kind of shit. He was not going to take any chances, not going to get in there blind. Weird that he hadn't heard about this place and this guy through his own grapevine.

"You can call me whatever you want," Tim sighed and studied the darkness of the street, the building and... a conveniently busted fire escape on the 8th floor. "Basement has the evidence. Guys like Menendez keep everything out of sight from their families." He pulled out the binoculars and perched on the edge of the building, nothing but air under the toes of his utility boots, but completely hidden from the street. "Guy's got four bodyguards, but two of them are canvassing the blocks that the pros are supposed to be working." He swayed and quickly pushed back against the wall, "So, we're assuming that he's there, with no less than two armed men and possibly three girls who are young, naive and might do anything for the man who brain-washed them." He was… he knew a thing or two about guardians and brainwashing, but, he didn't think Menendez wanted to dress the thirteen years olds up in Lycra to have them fight crime.

Jason moved when Tim swayed, but Tim got back to his feet before a grab was needed.

That was it. "You stay here. I got it." He would just have to slip inside, get down to the basement - take the bodyguards down fast enough to not raise any kind of alarms, avoid the girls or punch them out.

Jason swung to the building next to their target, slipped down in the back of the alley there, circled the building. There had to be a window- gotcha. It wasn’t even locked, and the alarm was stupidly easy to switch off.

He should have made sure Tim wasn't following him.

Tim thought it was cute that Jason thought he'd stay when he was told to heel. Jason wasn't Batman, and Tim, despite letting Jay take the lead, despite his own wishes, wasn't anyone's sidekick anymore. And also, he didn't quite trust Jay to not be his trigger happy self, if he didn't like what he saw in there. He gave Jay a minute to find the window, and then another 30 seconds until Tim rose from his hiding place and tailed him.

That Jason didn't like what he saw in there was... a very nice fucking euphemism. He knocked one guard out, tied the bastard up, was tempted to throw him out from a window- but that was too much work for a waste of space like that. He got to the basement without problem, the girls Tim had talked about probably sleeping or (most likely) passed out on drugs. He knocked the guard sitting at the door of the basement out. He opened the door there and saw the other locked door and opened that one too and-  
-Tim should have warned him.

Had he been paying attention, he'd have seen the materials and the drugs in the basement, and the electronics that probably shouldn't have been there.

Tim caught up with Jason. Saw him make quick, violent work of one of the guards... _there was at least one more, don't forget. Don't forget._ Tim crept past some bodies. They were on the floor and on the couch and... they appeared to be breathing, but Tim couldn't help them now. So he just shadow danced around them, quietly, slowly. And it was possible his blood sugar was plummeting, hitting the cement floor of the basement.

And he made it behind Jason, five paces away, watching the bodies, watching the shadows watching his and Red Hood’s backs.

"One more guard plus big daddy, right, Red?" He whispered so he wouldn't forget it. His head was spinning. So Jason didn't forget, and Tim could see his finger clenching. He peeked past Jason into the room. It was worse than he thought.

Jason nearly jumped out of his skin at Tim talking - the kid sounded completely spaced. "The fuck 're you doing there?" He hissed. He had nearly taken Tim's head off with his knife, too. There wasn't much more they could do there, aside from... -from killing the asshole who did and ordered this- the 'evidence' in the basement, the kid who couldn't be much older than Tim - they couldn't do anything.

"Call it in," Jason said, and maybe he should have thought more about that, because Tim was spaced out on tiredness, but he was the only one with a line out. Jason carefully got closer from the body - he couldn't tell the gender from the face and the too thin limbs poking from a too large shirt. The kid was still breathing, shallowly, in a face so beaten it didn't look human anymore.

Tim gave Babs the go ahead code to call the cops. And an ambulance. There was still Menendez and one armed guard. _Don't forget_. But he was watching Jason get closer to the body. A body he was having trouble focusing on. He couldn't… he couldn't think right now. Not about that. He watched Jay for a minute, stomach tied into... what felt like a million knots. And if he was a smoker, he'd be smoking a whole pack of cigarettes after this.

He pulled his camera, no larger than the size of a pen, out, and snapped a few pictures of the body. Jason was in the frame, the edge of his jacket, the dark of his jeans, a hand, he knew this even without the use of a view finder. He walked around, checked over his shoulder to make sure the bodies were still just that; bodies and not men with guns trying to kill him. Kill them.

Tim was still slightly shockey. Slightly shakey. The photographs would be a bit blurry, Bruce... Dick. _Sorry about that_. He remembered when he took photos for fun.

He made sure he didn't touch the drugs, took a dozen or so frames. And snapped a dozen more of the perimeter of the room. Eyes sweeping for anything that could be helpful.

He heard a tone in his ear; code from Oracle. Cops were 5 minutes out. He tried to catch Jason's eyes, but those were still glued on the child on the tile floor.

If Tim looked too hard he would throw up.

Jason kept a steady stream of soft voiced nonsense toward the kid, even if he could feel in his bones it was too late, it was too late. No one should have to die alone. He saw the edge of Tim's cape, could guess it was going around the room - collecting evidence, probably. He left Tim to his job.

Then– Tim was too still. The cops would get here soon. It was done, for him. Bad idea for the cops to find the Red Hood here.

He got up - his knees were… He didn't really want to know what was on the floor there, didn't want it on his gloves. "We done?" he called to Tim briskly, impatient to climb up, fast, before the boys in blue got here and -

No. Even a bullet would be too good for the son of a bitch that did that, all of that. He watched the basement a bit more, noticed the amounts of random shits, the drugs, the bodies, how few of them were still breathing.

Jason was… reacting. Which was good. It was good to have compassion, Tim thought. But... he was… he was being loud.

Tim silently padded across the cement, willed himself to be noiseless like how Alfred could be in the walls of the Manor. He placed a gauntleted hand on Jason's warm shoulder and leaned, lips to the shell of the older man's ear, "Cops are 5 minutes out. But without Menendez..." For all that Jason was headstrong, he was smart. Tim knew he would figure out the rest.

Jason kept looking at the girl on the tile... breaths coming in quick, shallow pulses. And Tim made up his mind. "Grab the girl, let's get out of here."

Tim'd have grabbed her himself, but. He was out of breath already. His own heart was jack-hammering in his chest and there were clouds of white floating in and out of his vision. He was supposed to be... remembering something, right? One more guard? Or... was he hopped up on pills too? He had recognized the Molly and the oxycontin, on the shelves, discarded empty on the floor. There were amphetamines... prescription stuff. The good, clean stuff.

"Grab the girl", he repeated and turned back to see if he could crack the lock on the basement window without much noise.

"Yeah." Jason said, nodded. "Yeah," he repeated. He saw how Tim was too, how badly he was keeping it together but the job, the Mission, before them. He was careful, very careful when he slipped his hands under the frail body - Tim was looking for an out, and that was when things went to shit.

‘No less than two armed guards’, and he had taken one out, but there were two there again, at the door of the basement - cries and shouts and he squared himself in between the doorway and a bit of wall in the bathroom, protecting the kid with his body and getting his gun out.

He didn't know where Tim was.

Then one more guy showed up, packing serious heat - enough to blow them all to kingdom come-

Tim… had screwed up. Got lazy and got cocky and... shit like this never happened when Bruce was here. He missed Bruce. He was… only half way through the lock, when he saw Jason freeze and twist his body to cover the girl in his arms.

There were two armed men. Not one plus Menendez. Two guards. He had fucked up. He had miscalculated. This was his fault.

 _Think, Drake. Think._

But... thoughts weren't fucking coming and he felt his mind bubbling up absolutely nothing. He hoped Jason wore a flack jacket. He hoped he would not going to get his... brother?... killed. Again.

His gloved fist broke through the glass, shattering the silence, the black night. They knew they were here, no use in being quiet now. He cleared the glass, sending shards flying, hitting his face.

"Red! Get out!" He hoped he could take the few shots that were absolutely going to hit him. "Get the girl and go!" He threw a shuriken and it hit... but his aim was off. His vision was off.

Jason didn't think much once he heard the window breaking –he covered the girl, hoped to all hells the idiots wouldn't shoot at his head, and.

Tim's aim was off.

The kid was running on.. empty literally, and he was going to get himself killed staying in the open- "Come on, R, follow!"

But once he was out and by the window, Jason knew something was wrong.

Tim... Tim could hear the sirens in the background. Not too much longer now. Not too much longer. He ducked in a shadow and palmed another shuriken. The girl was out. Jason was out. He could do this.

He just needed to stay quiet. They... they probably wouldn’t call an all out open fire in the basement. Not with the girls... the bodies on the couches and merchandise that could get destroyed.

Come on, Drake. Adrenaline was… his best fucking friend right now. He ducked low. In the shadows. He couldn't make out where the gunmen were. Couldn't… and then he saw it.

The two, poorly concealed bottles of hydroiodic acid and red phosphorus. Shit. Fuck. Damn. One spark and this place... this place was just another crater in Gotham.

Of course they would be cooking crystal meth. Of course they would. How had he missed this?

Had he missed this? He... had walked around. Took the photos... He'd either missed it, or he'd forgotten about it. Forgotten about the containers of chemicals used to make one of the worst drugs imaginable.

This place was going down. He... he needed to get out. He couldn't save the bodies on the couches. Had to save himself. Tim needed to get out.

When Jason opened his eyes again...

He thought he could see the lights of police cars. Blue and red and– He didn't think he could hear anything, not just yet.

His ears were ringing. His jacket wasn't black anymore.

"T-," he coughed dust and, "Robin?" He tried to raise himself from the grit and the bits of plaster littering the sidewalk he was laying in, above the girl who was still, miraculously, breathing and even moving, now of all times; he tried to turn back to the building he just got out off - “Robin?” He repeated, louder, barely able to hear himself. “Robin!”

Tim could hear Jason calling his name... his old name. The name he still wanted so badly it hurt a little more than the piece of iron that he could see protruding from his belly. _"Robin!"_

But he wasn't Robin anymore.

He was a Red Robin.

*

There was a big lot of nothing. Or maybe it was only nothing if you looked at it too long. He was so tired.

Then it wasn't just nothing. She was there. There, just above him, her cool hand in his plaster-covered hair, his head on her knees. He thought that- he thought that-

"He's... he's proud of me... right?... Can I just... rest now?"

"Close your eyes, Tim." She kept petting him, mindless of the sweat, of the grit, of the blood. "Sleep."

Her hand was so cool and smooth, and he couldn't… he couldn't feel his legs, or all the places that hurt, or his body and– there was just her hand, on his head, and he was so tired… His lids fell closed, slowly.

"You earned it."

+++

Jason walked into the Cave just as the dick was coming back from his own patrol - he didn’t think about his next move, got there fast, hits. Everything took Dick by surprise, and he had his hands clamped on his face and nose, suddenly.

"What the hell?!" There was blood gushing. Bright, bright blood.

Bruce moved to restrain Jason, to keep him from hitting Dick again. Dick didn't even deserve to be hit again, none of them here did- they were even lower than that. Jason stiffened in the hold but made no move to get away. "He's dead. He's dead, you assholes."

"What the hell, Jason!?" That was Dick repeating himself, voice muffled by the glove holding the blood in his face.

"Who's dead, Jason?" Bruce was standing there, inscrutable as always, his voice not yet the Bat’s, but getting there.

"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK?!" The question pissed him off so much he wished- he wished…. He was this close from running on empty, on empty and memories of blood and screams and blank eyes.

Jason sagged into Bruce’s hold, enough for the older man to trust he wouldn’t jump to Dick’s or anyone else’s throat on the spot, so he let him go.

Bruce turned to the monitors to the computers, "Oracle, give me Red Robin's location." His hands were clenched on the steel desk top as he... waited.

Dick turned to Jason, the blood now a trickle on his face, "You're wrong. He's fine, Jason. Tim's fine.... But you... you're bleeding, Jay. Let's... You need to be patched up. Get you some fluids..."

Jason moved as if to try to hit him again, and then he did this horrible laugh, when it was either that or crying so hard you couldn't stop. "You're such an asshole." He didn’t say, ‘the blood isn’t mine’, he didn’t say, ‘gets your hands off me’, he didn’t yell and scream quite as much as he wanted to. "Nothing can touch you, huh?"

"No... no. Jason. You don't know Tim. He's the one... he's the one we don't have to worry about. He's... you don't know him like we do. He's the most capable person I’ve ever met. He's... more capable than Bruce. Really. Jason." Dick was beginning to panic. Jason thought detachedly that he should feel bad for him, for the illusions Dick was swimming in and had taught himself to think of as truth.

“ ‘He’s the one we don’t have to worry about’? That’s the whole problem,” Jason said. He saw Damian at the corner of his eye, half hiding in the shadow, a snarl on his face. Bruce was still waiting. “You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

Jason left.

“Oracle. Where is Red Robin? Where is Tim?”

“I’m *looking*, Bruce... I can’t... I can’t find him.” There was some frantic clacking, clicks and beeps, click click click. “I’m... beaming you his last coordinates... but. They’re cold, Batman. Twenty minutes without a signal.”

Bruce brought up a map, plugged in the coordinates and satellite imaging showing that there were still two cruisers outside, red and blue lights reflecting and refracting on the damaged brick of the buildings. It bounced off the corners of the alley-ways. Smoke slithered out the windows, floating up towards the dark, clear sky. There was no fire, but everything was damp, drenched and wet.

“It’s Tim. Tim got out. If he was there... if he was in there, he got out.” The two Batmen were standing in front of the monitor, Bruce silently lying to himself, thick arms crossing his chest. Dick was pacing and pleading his case to himself, to Bruce –to anyone who would listen and agree with him. “Right, Bruce? I mean... It’s... It’s Tim...”

But Bruce didn’t say anything.

+++

Jason was pretty sure this was a very bad idea. But he was not exactly running on all fuses as it was, and he remembered very well the girl’s wide eyes, and there were things that were better learned from someone’s mouth.

And Tim had died alone.

He knocked on the window, waited for Tam to hear it and hopefully not shoot his head off - not right now, at least.

She heard the knock on the window from the kitchen and her heart sped up in her chest, Timothy Drake-Wayne Alvin Draper was so gonna get it for... terrifying her. Again. But she dropped what she was doing, barely heard the dish she had been washing shatter when it hit the sink. But who cared? It was just a stupid plate, and she ran to the bedroom, Tim’s window of choice for his impromptu visits.

“Tim! You stupid boy, what did I tell you about not ca--” But when she looked out the window. It wasn’t Tim.

Without opening the window, like Tim had told her not to unless it was him and seriously –she had seen Spider Man; she wasn’t about to Mary-Jane herself–, she called “Where’s Tim?” She kept her voice... what she hoped was neutral.

There was barely enough light - it was dawn, and where had the rest of the night passed? Jason could probably read her lips, but he was tired, and this was not something he was going to do through a window. He took his mask off, winced a bit at the glue sticking and some skin leaving, then knocked again. Tim had probably drilled security measures into her, at one point.

She had developed a healthy dose of skepticism since her meeting... hunting... no, adventures with Tim.

But this man. This... boy? How old was he? Probably her age? He looked... he looked so tired. And... he knew Tim. He’d seemed okay the other day... And while... Tim hadn’t exactly sung Jason’s praises, he hadn’t seemed to be... worried about him, either. More like... annoyed. Like... how Tam’s face looked when Tif was being her own particular brand of obnoxious.

And again. He looked so tired, so sad. And how come those Wayne boys were so sad, all the time? So, she reached up and unlocked the window. He probably wouldn’t kill her. He looked pretty harmless, actually. Of course, Tim had said those were usually the worst.

(“Don’t I look pretty harmless?” Tim gave her his best, most earnest expression and Tam had to giggle.

“I’m fairly certain skinny little rich kids are only dangerous to Daddy’s platinum card.”

Tim had smiled at her and looked away, “I know how to kill someone in three seconds, Tam.”)

Jason Todd wasn’t as earnest as Tim, though. “I wouldn’t try anything, Jason, ‘cause, my uncle’s a cop.”

Jason slithered in the room, kept his arm up above hers on the window pane. He probably should have laughed, or even just huffed at her little joke. Instead he just looked at her in the half-light of the room. He wondered how one broke this kind of news. There would probably be crying, and yelling and-

“Tam...”

He was going to say something she didn’t want to hear. She was… No. She turned around, gave Jason her back and Tim would be so disappointed in her for that. That was the first thing he’d told her after, ‘try not to get shot’, ‘never give them your back, Tam. Don’t make it an easy target.’ And she wanted to know when she had started thinking about the ways that Tim Drake defined her. How all her actions were framed in thoughts of him. How he managed to change her life so dramatically in such a short time.

Tyson walked into the room, the little bell on his collar tinkling softly. The cat looked at Jason and back to Tam and flopped down on the wood.

Tam brought a hand to her mouth, chewed on the hang-nail on her thumb and turned back around, “You look like you’re about to pass out. In my bedroom. I’m not okay with that. Um. I have cake.”

And she walked back to the kitchen. Giving Jason her back again, but Tyson was there. And Tim gave her Tyson, so. She thinks it was okay and. This was about Tim.

He followed her. He didn’t suppose doing this in the light would be any easier. He should probably have laughed at the ‘I have cake’ line. He... didn’t really know where his head was now.

By now, someone must have retrieved the body. It was possible that it would all blow up, or it could go unheard and unnoticed, an accident manufactured somewhere, something. Tim Wayne worked- ... had worked closely with Tam Fox. She needed to know, before she was made know through news report and noisy reporters.

She was still not looking at him, and it was probably for the best because he didn’t need to see his face reflected back at him in her eyes.

Her cat got up and ran between his legs, seemed to look up at him before he ran back to Tam, his head cocked to the side.

Jason looked… haggard and spooked. And... she was nurturing at heart, and so she pushed him into a kitchen chair and... cake. Cake always made things easier right?

She grabbed the sharp knife from the cutlery drawer and she could feel the tears settle in her eyes as she cut off two pieces of sheet cake. She grabbed two forks, two plates and two glasses and the milk carton from the fridge and the tears had started to... spill now.  
 _God, Tam. You’re such a little girl._

“You should... eat the cake.” But even when she sat down next to him and lifted a forkful of it to her mouth... it was… tasteless. And the tears. She could feel them track down her face.

He couldn’t bring himself to eat it - he thought he could understand why she did this, a semblance of normalcy and... it was nothing like in the Cave, earlier. Tam did her job, did her best, and Tim did what he did best and. He couldn’t blame her. Not like he blamed himself.

He hadn’t said anything yet. She was right next to him, she was crying and.

“I followed him. Tonight. He was exhausted.” He looked at her, at her profile. He didn’t know what she was looking at, what she was imagining. He took the fork from her hand, before it fell.

She heard a strangled cry and realized that. It came out from her. “Tim? My Tim messed up? Jason... I know... you gotta know... how,” And she choked back another sob, “You gotta know how strange that sounds to me.” And it was not that she thought Tim was infallible or perfect. She knew he wasn’t. Having a conversation with the kid was like trying to talk to a wall. And... getting straight answers from him, well. He had mastered the art of non-verbal communication.

He had taken her hand, the one that had been using the fork. Just for- to remind him that he was there and now. Her hand was shaking.

“He- I think it was the last op for the night. He gave me the lead on that one. I told him to stay where he was.”

The cat bumped into his legs, under the table. _My Tim._

“He didn’t mess up.” He didn’t. “He’s-”

He couldn’t say it. Couldn’t whisper it. Couldn’t yell it like he had yelled it at Dick and Bruce.

Jason’s hand was hard, calloused and slightly damp. His voice sounded damp, for all the proof that he wasn’t crying like she was. And... and she was a little out of her mind, she thought, as another harsh sob escaped her mouth.

And she was so torn. Because part of her felt like she should have been wondering why this didn’t happen sooner. Because Tim always looked like he could use a nap. Because sometimes, Tam cancelled meetings just for the sole purpose of getting Tim to sleep longer on the couch in Bruce’s old office, nose pressed into plaid throw pillow, wrinkling the expensive Italian suit he wore just for the office.

He always came into the building in jeans and band t-shirts and left in these... impressive suits. And later at night, if Tam was lucky enough, she saw him in his real uniform. And... it was exhausting to watch, but Tim always had far more grace than any other person Tam had ever met...

And then the other part. The childish part of herself was kicking and screaming and yelling about how this was Tim Drake-Wayne Alvin-Draper and how he was the coolest person she knew. That he could kill zombies and ninja assassins and... still ace hard math classes that she opted not to take in high school.

And Jason was looking at her with... familiarly un-familiar blue eyes and she was still crying.

He wondered for an instant if he wasn’t in shock, a bit –he had taken the edge of the blast after all, and the raining bricks and dust, and his ears were still faintly buzzing with a noise that wasn’t there– because he was there, with Tam crying and he was. He didn’t think he could cry. He didn’t think he could do much of anything, aside from keeping on. He didn’t see the point of excuses, didn’t see the point of beating himself up (he could do that in the privacy of his own mind), didn’t see the point of saying that Tim died as a hero saving one person –because that last one made him want to throw up and kill something, someone.

“We had to retrieve evidence. But-” No, not like that. “The building blew up.” There, like that. Blunt and hard and- nothing.

He raised his eyes –they had fallen to her hand between his at some point– to hers, licked his lips. There was blood there, too. Blood on the back of his right hand. Some on his neck, because it was stiff and it tingled like ripped skin.

“He’s dead, Tam.” And it hurt more to say it now than to yell it earlier. And it felt more real now, more terribly real. And it hurt at the back of his eyes. “He’s dead.” And it was not her eyes he was staring at anymore, but the nothing there right now between them.

She just squeezed Jason's hand harder and laid her head down on the table next to the forgotten piece of cake.

The kitchen was too bright, too calm, sounded even more silent with Tam’s violent sobs resounding against the table, unmuffled by the hand she had pressed hard against her mouth.

His head felt like it was spinning, a low buzzing in his ears. He closed his eyes.

He heard Tam, after a while. She tugged lightly at her hand between his.

"You need to leave now." And she didn't want to see him go, didn't want to be alone but– and he was up and leaving toward her room, toward the window no-one had closed and she laughed around a sob, another one

"No! Out the door... you freak…" and she kept laughing and sobbing. Tim did the same thing. Used to do the same thing. She started to cry again, harder.

He left without a back glance, with the sound of her tears in his head.

+++

"You think I wouldn't be able to find you? I found Alvin Draper in Iraq, you know?"

“How did you get there?” Jason was pretty sure he had upped his security two days ago, and it wasn’t like he was exactly on the grid. He wasn’t even supposed to be alive. No credit card and all of this fucking annoying stuff.

So seeing Tam walk into his glorified squat of a place was a bit weird.

Tam was silent. She looked down at her feet, ignoring the… sparsely furnished studio. She ignored the guns resting on the nicked up coffee table. “Tim mentioned it to me... one time.”

Jason put his fork down, pushed the little container of couscous toward the middle of the counter thing he used as a table. It was still warm, and he didn’t get cheated on the chickpeas but... he didn’t feel like eating, anymore. Of course Tim had known. It surprised Jason a bit that he had told Tam about it –made him wonder what else she knew, what else she remembered of one-time conversations. She knew a lot.

He hadn’t seen her since the funeral, a few weeks ago now. That had been... he still wondered why he had gone. He had stayed on the edges, as out of sight as he had managed to. Any closer and he would have tried to hit Bruce and Dick again and with all the in-civvies heroes and news crew around it would not have been the best idea.

He had wanted to hurt every single person that had shown up. And there had been, there was only laughter when he asked himself why he had cared, why he cared so much.

Jason had watched everything. Bruce had been pale and intense, and silent. Steph had looked... sad and guilty. He had seen Kon and Bart, Kon's hand clenching not even rhythmically, an on and off thing that would have probably resulted on a broken hand on anyone else. Bart was pacing, but slowly enough to be seen –Jason remembered the Kid Flash’s funeral, a hasty stop in the hurrying in a nonsensical quest.

All these people had died and come back. Jason had died and come back, too. Then too many had just died. Tim just had had to live through all of it. All the death.

Jason had stayed busy since - still was. He had retrieved a good part of Tim’s research and files. The amount of work that had been put there was impressive. It had made him wonder why Ti-... why it hadn’t happened sooner.

Tim had been killing himself.

Jason didn’t get up, just turned a bit in his seat to face her. “What do you want?”

He was not even being mean or anything. This was not a place for a girl like Tam Fox. There was a wall of screens, and firearms, and knives embedded in the wall, and a beat-up couch dragged out from a dumpster, a dying fridge, paper trails, a mattress that was not used enough, some mats and a punching bag. There was nothing here.

The container of couscous bumped into the little bottle of pills sitting in the middle of the table.

Tam looked around. It was stupid. She shouldn’t have come here. He didn’t want her around here. But. He knew Tim. Had known. And so, she didn’t really care what he wanted.

She thought about going to Dick; the older brother that Tim had loved and respected so much that it... god. It hurt. Because Tam had been able to see the hero worship in Tim’s big blue eyes that... did it really deserve to be there? She had thought about going to Bruce. But, having a conversation with that man meant you had to speak a different *language* for a good three quarters of it. He was flighty and said stupid things that made Tam want to scream and clench her fists. Everything seemed to be in code. She knew that he knew that she knew... some things. Not everything. But important *things*. And he would look at her and speak to her like it was three years ago. Like nothing had changed.

But, Jason Todd. Tim had talked to her about Jason for a while. Said,

(“Jason is dangerous. But, Jason isn’t going to hurt you either. Jason has... anger issues, but. Well. I mean. He probably won’t hurt you.”

“Tim! What are we talking about, here? Like... crazy-ninja assassin wants to hurt me? Meta-spider-hands kind of pain? Nosey, bitchy, stupidly pretty reporters kind of hurt? Come on Tim, I need the intel. Intel... isn’t that what you all say?”)

But Tim had just said that, Jason was complicated, just... fell on the wrong path. That he had had it pretty rough.

He hadn’t specified.

But, while Tim Drake-Wayne Alvin Draper may have been the saddest person she had ever seen... Jason Todd no hyphens, was the most damaged. And... he was too much like Tim for her to stay away. These black haired, blue eyed boys were infecting her life.

She looked around the room quickly. Jason looked tired, but he had been eating. She felt *guilty* for interrupting him while he was eating. Just like she always had been when she had caught Tim eating a sandwich or something. And just like Tim, Jason had put down the food as soon as he saw her.

Jason just looked tired and blank, Tim had always looked tired and guilty.

The place was... oddly familiar, from where she was standing. “You know? This place looks really similar to where T-Tim worked.” So similar, chills infested her skin and she hugged herself.

Jason closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. Yeah, his place looked like Tim’s storage box had looked, but when it came down to that, every place with one of them looked the same. At least his came into a building. And his bed was slightly more used.

He had plans, for this night. There was a new player up in Crime Alley that needed shooting down fast, and he had ears in circles who were talking of a drug operation further down to the docks –a drug op Tim had forecasted, then ran back all the way up to really big guns. If tonight’s op was stopped and enough noise was made, it would keep Gordon’s boys busy for a few weeks. Neither Batmen or Oracle knew about it, if Jason could trust his sources.

He saw her hugging herself. He got up, closed the container –it would still be good in a few hours or even by tomorrow; good thing he had started with the meat– put it in the fridge, dropped the fork in the cluttered sink. The coffee he had started was done and.

He took two relatively clean mugs out.

“Get over here, Diversity Barbie.” He didn’t mention the kitchen space was the closer to the heater. He put down the filled mugs on the counter. He still had some manners, whatever people may think, and. He didn’t exactly want to ponder on when was the last time he had seen someone long enough to have a conversation longer than “how’re you” and “thanks, bye”, or with someone who wasn’t hell-bent on shooting his ass.

She jumped when he addressed her, even though she had spoken first. She walked further into the room and clutched at the coffee mug. Wrapped her hands around the chipped ceramic and let it burn heat into her hands.

She looked around at the counter and the table in the middle of the room some more. The cheap, knock-off Tiffany lamp hanging in the middle of the room was buzzing with an incandescent light. There were papers covering nearly every flat surface. She recognized the organized disorder. It was how she worked. Tim had made fun of her for that, had offered to help her organize. She had told him that it didn’t matter. Tyson just liked to sit on the piles anyway.

She took a seat next to the one Jason had been in previously, the open laptop not quite in her line of sight. The orange script bottle... was.

“40mg of Concerta? Are you a 12-year-old ADHD boy, Jason?” She unwrapped one hand from the mug and reached out to shake the bottle. It was about half empty. She put it back down, righting it on the particle board table-top.

Jason snorted in his mug –’I <3 Gotham!’– leaning against the cold sink. “Cute.” He didn’t answer more than that. He wasn’t about to explain the finer points of how to stay awake with the help of prescription drugs. The coffee tasted of smoke. Maybe he should have opened that pack he had- well. Not found, as it had been put quite in evidence on a roof he had used two nights in a row, with a note. Alfred. Good ol’Al.

He noticed Tam looking at everything. There was nothing directly incriminating, aside from the guns. “My last question still stands. I’m not much of one to have social visits, if you can believe it.” Tim had known about this place. He hadn’t told anything about it to the others, or he’d have had visits by now, in the loose sense of the term. He wasn’t sure he could stand to see any of them.

“See, you’re looking at me like I don’t know what those pills are. Like I didn’t go to a private school with millionaires’ kids that popped Adderall and speed to cram for tests. I think *that’s* cute.” She ran a hand through her hair. Tim never– had never thought she was naive. He had never told her everything, but he had never thought she was an idiot. (“You’re Lucius Fox’s daughter, Tam. I’m not doubting your intelligence. I’m not an *idiot*.”) Jason just clearly didn’t want her here. She was in the way. But... she didn’t have anyone else to talk to. She... she *missed* Tim. Because her dad looked at her with sad eyes, and her sister tried to get her our of the house by shopping or eating. And, she couldn’t tell them that Tim had been more than just Tim Drake. He was more. And she thought the silence and the... misunderstanding were going to choke her. “I just...” –She wouldn’t cry. She was cried out. But the ache behind her temples pounded and disoriented her. “I won’t stay long. I just... How did you know him?”

That. It was like. A broken de-cel line and you’re at the other end. So Jason lashed out, because that was how his defense worked, and. “Want me to tell you I use them to do exactly what got your boyfriend killed?” He put his mug down, forcefully. The chipped handle broke in his hand.

He quieted down, stared at the handle.

“You won’t find him here.” You won’t find him anywhere because that was Tim, and that was how Tim had worked. He knew the feeling. Quiet, intense Tim. Frighteningly good. A lot like Bruce, by many aspects, but totally Tim.

He looked up at her- he couldn’t remember seeing her before all that, even though he had to have met her. Tam was what? His age? About? There had had to have been a picnic party for the WE employees and their family, when he had lived with Bruce. Or an informal thing, something. He could remember the tightness of the ties and the cigarettes he had sneaked out to smoke.

Tam looked tired, circles under her eyes and drawn features. She has lovely eyes. He looked up to the ceiling, leaned back again against the sink, his arms open. Looked back down.

“It’s...,” he began. “It’s a fucked up story. What do you know?”

She felt a stricken look freeze on her features, “I... I don’t know anything.” She squeezed her eyes shut. And then opened them. “I know... I know things from what he said and didn’t say.  
“I know... I know he was another... before he was Red Robin. I know. I know he was looking for Batman –The Detective, in Iraq when I found him bleeding out on a hotel bed. I know he doesn’t have a spleen anymore. I know that... there was a Batman running around in Gotham when he was searching for Batman.  
“I know his mother was murdered. His father was murdered and his step-mother is presumed dead from the explosion in Bludhaven a couple years ago.” But this had all been stuff she looked up. Things she had asked her father. This wasn’t information Tim had volunteered. “I know he stayed with Bruce for a couple months, when his father was in a coma. I don’t know how they met.  
“I know. Tim was sad a lot. But. He was really brave, too. And... he was.” She couldn’t hold in the giggle, “He was like... the most level-headed person I’d ever seen in the most ridiculous situations.  
“But... Tim didn’t *tell* me very much. Just... just tell me more about Tim, Jason. Please. I. I only knew him for 5 months. Just... five months.”

Jason stayed very silent, when she talked. Then he let go of the sink and the broken mug, walked back to the counter and sat down next to her. This was the kind of conversation Dick should have had with her. Bruce. Superboy. Bart. Babs. But she had come to him, and he wondered if any of them had really known Tim, and if any of them had bothered to go see her, and to be truthful from beginning to end.

“I was Bruce’s son,” he began. All ties had been cut for good now. There was no coming back from this. He licked his lips - there was a fine line between informations and information that could get her killed. “I was also a well known kid hero with delusions of being a bird. Then I left,” with a good helping of crowbar and explosions, “and Tim made himself into what Batman needed.” He had little doubt she’d fill in the correct blanks.

“The first time I met him, I slit his throat. The second time, I bashed his head into the floor of the Titans Tower. You get the rest of the picture.”

He fell silent, his arms crossed on top of the counter. “He had so much potential. He was... focused. Frightening.” He didn’t know what else to say.

Tam didn’t know what to answer to that. Something inside her told her she should run. That... that if he could hurt Tim without blinking... then what would he do to her? But, Jason looked so sad. “So... you and Tim didn’t get along, huh?” Cracking bad jokes was what she did best. “Why... he replaced you? Is that... is that why you hated him?” She thought about the scar that had been a thin white line on Tim’s neck, “tracheotomy accident”, he’d told her and it was so fucking funny now that she had to laugh. And she couldn’t stop. God. He had been such a good liar... it *was* scary.

“So you tried to kill him... and then you tried to save him? You’re not really... god. You are giving me information, but no answers. I just... I want to know who Tim Drake was. I know... I know what he was to me... what was he to you?”

He stared at the table top some more - considered getting up and taking his jacket and his guns and his mask and leaving right here and now. Who was- no. Who had Tim been to him? He didn’t know. He didn’t fucking know and-

“I don’t have an answer for you, Tam. I didn’t know him as my brother, or as a colleague, he was- .” He’d still felt responsible for the kid when everyone else had looked the other way, and that had gone deeper than not wanting another Robin dead. He didn’t know if he hated him anymore.

Tim hadn’t left him any scars –but the one from Bruce on his neck mirrored the one Jason had left on Tim’s. He traced it, lightly, then brushed away his hair from his face; white lock stark in the middle of the black. He had gone back to not dyeing it. To remind himself he wasn’t immortal and invincible? He didn’t know. Hadn’t felt like it.

“Go back home, Tam. Forget about knowing more.” He rose from the seat. “Hanging around people like us is dangerous for your health.”

“You... You’re the only one I can talk to, Jason. Everyone else. Bruce had... Bruce said, ‘Tommy had it rough. I’ll really miss the kid around the house.’ Or something like that. And it was all... it was all *lies*. Dick. Dick just looks like he wants to cry half the time. Like he’s going to be sick if I mention Tim’s name.” She breathed. “I can’t just... forget, Jason. I can’t. Could you forget him? Really?” She looked around, checked her surroundings. “I don’t want to lose him. I’m not... I’m better with him. I’m better with knowing him. I like me more. I don’t want to lose him.”

She picked up a piece of loose paper with chicken scratch handwriting. Coordinates and codes that she didn’t recognize. This was what Tim had done. He had helped people. She wanted to do that.

“Let me help, Jason.” She looked up at him, directly in his too blue, but wrong blue eyes, “I’m not... I know I’m not... what you want or need but. Let me *help*. Let me do something. Don’t make me become that stupid girl I was before Tim came into my life. Cause... it really seems like forever ago.”

He wanted to… bat the paper right out of her hand. Yell. Make her change her mind, right here and now.

“I don’t do sidekicks,” he said, and he felt like his throat was going to eat itself. He wanted to find ‘Brucie’ and shake the bastard’s brain apart. Find Dick and hit him again. “You have no fucking idea what you’re asking for. I can’t–” He had to breathe, he had to breathe before everything exploded, before he snapped. “You have a life. Don’t throw it away, even for him. I don’t think he’d have wanted you to become one of us.” He went for the kill. “I don’t care what you want. I don’t care if it hurts your little rich girl feelings or whatever. Forget him, don’t forget him, I don’t give a shit. Walk away and move on.”

He turned, giving her his back, and grabbed his jacket, fisting his hands into it, hiding the shaking and he didn’t know if it was because of her, because of her questions, or because he envied Tim so much right now to have known someone like her.

He wanted to cry.

He still hadn’t cried for Tim. He hadn’t cried since he dug his way out and breathed again –no, since he had held the Joker at point blank range with Bruce in front of them –no, since he had seen the Bruce who had given him the Red Robin suit being murdered before his eyes –no...

It hurt.

+++

“You... didn’t know him very well did you? Just enough to know how you could hurt him, probably?”

They were in a park, on a bench. Lunch time, and the place was packed with yuppies from the surrounding office buildings. They fit in, one more couple eating outside, hands wrapped around just-made sandwiches, idling playing with greasy papers. They...

Jason hadn’t been expecting to share Tam’s lunch hour, hadn’t even thought he’d see her. He had just been bringing up files Tim had had obviously borrowed from WE to improve them, files Jason had found very interesting and now weren’t useful to him anymore, but would be useful to WE. Tam would know what to do with them –and she had been in her office. He had thought, briefly, that he should have done that at night, when he would have been sure no-one was around. Then he hadn’t seen any reason to refuse her offer to share lunch with her, outside.

“Did you know that he... he loved his family a lot. Like. They could have controlled him... asked him to do anything and I’m pretty sure he would have done it. I think that, he acted differently around each of them, though. There were little... Tim pieces all over the place. But, I couldn’t quite gather them all up and and place them back in him. He was... too scattered, in a sense.” She talked, talked, talked; found that she couldn’t stop once she started, the words pressing at her lips. Jason looked more... approachable, in the light of day, more real. Different. He wasn’t looking like he minded listening to her babbling on about all the things she couldn’t tell anyone because no-one knew, not like that. “I know he liked Italian food, too. But he never ate it, because he said it would slow him down. But he watched me eat it...” Tam laughed, “It was kind of creepy.”

The paper crinkled in sharp noises in her hands, the sandwich almost forgotten. Two stroller-pushing moms passed before them, chattering away. A car honked, further away, starting a concert of horns and yells and sirens. A dog on a leash barked, dragging its owner. A pigeon took flight.

“Tim watched a lot. He saw a lot, I think. Without people knowing it. ‘Cause he was so quiet and he needed to know everything he absolutely could, huh? Did Tim ever watch you, that you know?” She didn’t wait for an answer. "It's like... I woke up after meeting Tim. I had... oh... 19 years where I didn't know that I was living some sort of... somnomolous, incomplete life. And Tim woke me up."

"By nearly bleeding out on your bed. There are worse wake-up calls, I suppose." The not-silence filled the air between them, its presence almost tangible on the bench.

"He lost his spleen, you know," she finally said, crinkling the paper around her untouched food.

"... I think you told me. He got lucky." There were some worse things to do, if you had a sharp thing in someone’s guts.

"Sure. I hadn't thought much of it either at first. I mean. What does a spleen even do?" She laughed a little, dry laugh that didn't suit her at all, didn’t suit this weird play of normalcy they were acting out. "Turns out the spleen helps fight infections. It removes old red blood cells and holds a reserve of blood in case of hemorrhagic shock. When you don't have a spleen... you get infections more easily... that are more persistent."

"Tim didn't die because of that." Maybe. Who knew.

"Sure. Maybe not. But... he'd stopped eating, right?" She looked stricken.

"He was still eating." For the few times he had seen it. "Just not enough anymore. And he wasn't sleeping... enough." He thought about taking Tam's hand, taking her forgotten lunch away before it fell down for the pigeons in the dirt below the bench.

"But why?"

He gritted his teeth, looked the other way. "Because he was useful that way. Because like this B. didn't need to be concerned about him and the cases he was wrapping up. Because he was _Tim_.” Jason took a bite of soggy bread and sparse salad. The meat was cold. "I'm not Tim, Tam. I’m not and I never was. I can't be your project, either."

"I'm pretty sure that... I was Tim's project..."

That conversation ended there, that day, on a bench in a park in the middle of downtown Gotham.

+++

The files weren’t the only thing Jason got from Tim’s storage box.

He had only come back for the gun he had left, a day after... after. But there were so many things, everywhere, files and pictures and open documents on Tim’s work station and there was a locker in a corner and more boxes of... everything.

There was... an old-fashion answering machine, and a land-line phone. The answering machine’s signal was flickering, almost audibly in the low buzz of the workstation.

Jason clicked the play button. Dick’s voice was there, then Bruce’s, then Dick’s, Dick’s again, Bruce’s... No-one else –probable that no-one else knew about that line, not even Tam.

<"Good job with the xxx case..."> <"So you wrapped up that thing with Scarab, right? That was quick."> <"Hey Tim, I noticed you finished that report, do you think, if you have time, you could look at this... You're doing really great work, little brother.">

The before last recorded message left was different. Tim had to have picked up the call right before the message started playing, so that it recorded their conversation without Tim knowing it. Or maybe he had known, and hadn’t cared. Or he had wanted to keep it. Or.... Who knew.

<"Tim. Alfred wants to know if you'll be at dinner next week.">

<"Hey Bruce, um. Actually. I have plans pretty much every night next week. But, we're still on for lunch on Wednesday right?">

<"A meeting with a WE client came up. Should we change it to breakfast?">

<"Well... I have school...">

<"Oh. Right. You're in school... I could cancel the meeting...?">

<"No... No. Don't do that, Bruce. I'll see you soon, okay?">

And Jason listened to that - it echoed a bit in the box, and it was Tim's voice... He was just a kid. And they treated him like an adult. They forgot he was still just a teenager.

The recording trailed off, then clicked shut. The noise resounded in the hum of the workstation. Jason closed his eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, he went for the boxes and locker. The files there were outdated, some were only made of the odd blurry pictures, other a hasty scribble. There was a birthday card, some clothes, books –psychiatry textbooks, business manuals, physics textbooks, novels and more, all carefully annotated and dog eared–, a manual camera and the assorted lenses... nothing that could interest him.

As he was shoving things back in place to go through the newer files, a photograph flew off from wherever it had been, falling on Jason’s foot.

He crouched down to pick it up– it was a picture of him. Him, Jason, as Robin. There wasn’t enough background to see where it had been taken exactly, but the angle hinted that it had been shot from a roof, higher than the Jason in the picture had been. He was looking over his shoulder, the streetlight glinting off the grin he had used to wear then. The sliver of dark in the corner he was smiling at had maybe been Batman’s cape.

Jason stood up, still examining the picture. Only one person could have taken that picture. Only one.

He punched the closest wall.

+++

Jason fell sick. Tam had noticed his nose running and him sneezing and coughing when she had seen him on the street. It wasn’t like she had been stalking him, because she hadn’t, and anyway by their own social norms it was perfectly normal somehow, and she had bumped into him, and had shared lunches and coffee breaks and not-so-random random encounters more than once since that day in the park. The somewhat secretive meetings and pass of information and files were making her feel like she was playing out a spy movie, only it was real, very real, and peop– _Tim_ had died already, so excuse her for keeping an eye on her... –could she call him her partner in not-crime?– on Jason.

So she had broken into his ‘sparsely furnished apartment’, had cleaned it some, mostly by picking the obviously unwearable-again-due-to-giant-red-stains clothing off the floor, and she had soup boiling on the stove when Jason came in.

"I cleaned, buddy. You better be grateful, ‘cause I don't clean." She turned toward him as he made his way in. He looked slightly worse, closer. “You look pretty bad.”

He groaned. "I'm not–" The rest of the sentence got lost in a coughing fit "–sick!" He finally spat out.

Jason looked ten years younger making those faces. It was slightly disconcerting. "Of course you're not. Go lay down, germy!" Tam waved a hand at him before pointing at the bed.

Jason rolled his eyes, but complied. There was little point hiding how tired he was as he sat down, kicking his shoes away. "Don't touch–” He coughed some more, the coughs coming from deeper and sounding more hollow as the day passed, "–the files. And don't call Oracle!"

Tam grabbed the files left on the counter –thick files, the top one sporting a coffee ring, the one below open, obviously in current use. ”Oh... you mean... these?”

"You– damn it," and Jason flopped down coughing his lungs out. He had been fine earlier. Well. For some definition of fine. Whatever he would say would be ignored by Tam anyway. She had a look he recognized from Alfred, and that couldn’t be good.

Tam picked up the com piece that was on the counter. It looked slightly old and beat-up, but it was the only communicator thing she had ever seen Jason use, and it reached only one person. "Oracle? Yeah. This is Tam Fox. Red Hood won't be on the grid today. He has the flu."

"I don't–!" And the comm rang with laughter, laughter that was almost drowned in yet another coughing fit.

"I'll tell him that you hope he feels better. Ok. Hey! We should get coffee some time, Oracle."

"NO!" The outcry had been a bad idea, but the prospect of Tam and Babs in the same room justified it: that would be the unholy alliance from hell, and that would be way too much focus on him. The coughing fit left him wheezing and tired, half-curled on his side.

Tam clicked the comm shut, the only noise the soup bubbling and the clang of the water in the old pipes.

He licked his lips. If he talked low and slow enough, it wouldn’t make him cough too badly, or so was the plan. "You realize... this is going to make the rounds now?"

Tam was turning her back on him, fussing with the soup before putting it in two mugs. “It’s past time that you guys realize you’re only human.”

Tim had been.

Tim had paid.

The emptiness between them hit suddenly. Tam froze, her back suddenly gone rigid under Jason’s stare. No, not Jason’s. Something else, someone else’s.

She brought one mug to him, kept the other on the counter. She left a few minutes later, her mug forgotten.

Jason closed his eyes and tried not to cough.

+++

Alfred showed up the next day.

"Master Jason, you will open the door this instant."

Jason regarded the ceiling for a brief moment, the cultured tone alien to the place. But he knew he would never win against Alfred, and he didn’t even want to try. He got up and went to the door.

"Open-" He licked his lips - his throat was parched and his head throbbed, but at least he’d stopped coughing like his lungs were going to come out, and the rest of his guts would follow soon after.

Alfred maybe made small talk, maybe not. Jason focused in going back to his mattress, shivering. The older man put a covered plate on the counter, started to rummage around the cupboard under the sink, then found a mop and a broom. Something was smelling good. Jason went back to drowsing.

"We... I... I was careless before. I'm not going to let that happen again." And Alfred went back to cleaning.

That woke him up for good. Jason closed his eyes until it hurt, burrowed back into the blankets, suddenly thinking of hunting for another place. There were way too many people who knew about it now but... maybe he didn't mind that much, for some of them. Even if it did hurt. "Not your responsibility to take."

"Yours or Master Tim's?"

"Both.” The pause was brief. “Did Tam talk you into this?"

"No. I'm clairvoyant, Master Jason."

Jay huffed. "Clearly. That would explain many, many things." And he smiled a little. "Thanks, by the way. For the coffee." The coffee was the one left on that rooftop, a few weeks ago, the one he had contemplated using the first time Tam had been there, and that he still hadn't used. And he didn't say thanks often, but that was _Alfred._

"Do get some more rest, Master Jason. And I have food wrapped up in the fridge. I believe my own mother said it best, ‘Feed a fever, starve a cold’."

Jay smiled again, at the corner of his lips. "Heard that before," and he didn't ask for the sleeping aids sitting next to the amphets above the fridge. They did weird things to him when he had a fever, anyway.

"Be well, sir. And of course, stay safe." Alfred said that all very pointedly and left.

Tam sneaked in after a couple hours, later that night.

Jay was drowsing again, the fever still going. Tam sneaking in woke him up a little - just enough to see who was there and wish to sleep some more. "... 'hat the... 'am?" He blinked in the dim light. "Now I'm scared Dick and Bruce are going to show up." He really wouldn’t be able to take it - and maybe he hadn’t thought about saying that out loud.

"Shh. Don't worry about it." It was the return of too-young Jason, thought Tam. Tyson coiled around her leg before exploring the place. It had made sense to her, to bring Tyson here. Tim had given him to her after all. And– and that was as far as her reasoning had gone. Jason never really struck her as an animal person, but it cheered people up, to have one around, right?

She grabbed an afghan from the couch ( _An afghan? Really? Since when does Jason have something so... domestic?_ Then she noticed the cleaned kitchen and the covered plate of what was –after identification– cookies and she smiled). She dragged the recliner that Jason used as coat rack and half a dozen other things closer to his bed, after setting the accumulated crap on the couch.

Tyson followed her back to Jason’s side after having sniffed and rubbed himself on the few pieces of furniture. He then jumped on the bed, and settled on Jason’s belly, kneading the blanket. Jason stared at the cat. "... shhh, don't tell Selina we're here..."

Tam gave a laugh, wrapping herself in the afghan on the recliner. "I really just brought him to eat the bugs in your apartment... not so he would love you more than me."

"... Family curse, I think... cats reaaaally like bats... not so sure of the other way around, except for B..."

Tam laughed a little again. Jason groggy and spaced out was very new, and she probably shouldn’t be amused like this, but he sounded so _different_ and a little too _young_. "Foxes seem to like Bats okay." She scratched Tyson's belly, as he rolled over on Jason, purring.

"Don't wanna be a Bat no more - but I still want you t’like me like you liked Tim..."

Tam slid her hand from the cat’s fur to the man –no, the boy– under the covers, threading her fingers through black and white locks, letting her nails gently scrape at his scalp. He half-closed his eyes, and it reminded her so much of the cat still sitting on his chest that she expected him to purr.

“Tim... I was blind before I met Tim. He- he opened my *eyes*. And he’s not here anymore.” Tam watched her hand make another pass through Jason’s hair. “I’m mad at Tim, it sounds awful to say, because he just... he’s not here. But-” She swallowed harshly around the giant nothing that was in her throat, “But Tim opened my eyes. And now I see you. Which... I’m happy for. *Honored*, even.”

Jason closed his eyes and sneaked a hand out of the blankets. It was warm, around her palm, warm and a bit too dry and she could feel the spots where his skin was thicker and harder.

“Thank you.”

He slept. So did she. She kept his hand in hers.

+++

/end

 

  



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